Can't beat the Patch.....

Me and Blowmonkey decide on working the Patch rather than twitching the Essex red-breasted goose and was not dissapointed! a late morning start was rewarded with a distant juv Glaucous Gull over wennington being mobbed by a smaller Herring gull, clearly the larger juvenile bird seen last week on the stone barges.

Then it got better after spending some time trying to find one of the serins we stumble across a superb Slavonian Grebe in the peremeter dyke off wennington where it stayed feeding on sticklebacks for the rest of the day allowing everyone stunning views of a normaly scarce London bird.

Then news came through off the re-appearance of the Tundra Bean Geese (Thanks Dom) having missed these in week, all three of us were dashing along the seawall to view the middle of the reserve and wasn't long before we picked out the birds amongst the resident Greylags before being flushed by a cow and relocating to Wennington.

The day ended at Berwick ponds to look for Bitterns, but i think our luck had run out, but a supporting cast of two Common Buzzards and a Barn Owl was not all lost.

Barn Owl (honest!)